Pf registration of trainee

Kindly look into the following and obtain legal opinion from your legal cell;

"Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 , Section 2(f) "employee" means any person who is employed for wages in any kind of work manual or otherwise in or in connection with the work of an establishment and who gets his wages directly or indirectly from the employer and includes any person

(i) employed by or through a contractor in or in connection with the work of the establishment;

(ii) engaged as an apprentice not being an apprentice engaged under the Apprentices Act 1961 or under the standing orders of the establishment;

&

The condition of three months continuous service or 60 days of actual work, for membership of the scheme, has been done away with, w.e.f. 1.11.1990. Workers are now eligible for joining the scheme from the date of joining the service"

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

Traniee is not covered under the PF act, beacuse he is not an emoployee with in the defination of the Act.

It is believed from the post that they are not apprentice, they are put on probation and are absorbed in regular appointment.If they are not apprentices engaged as per Apprentice Act, 1961, they will be covered by ESI and EPF.if company has a certified Standing Order providing for engaging trainees, they may be excluded from EPF, but are to be included for ESI.

Valuable advice of learned experts/members is sought.

Mr.Kumardoab's inputs are very valuable. If the employees who are not covered under Apprenticeship act or as per the standing orders even though you are paying stipend or treating them as trainee you need to cover them under PF.

I believe if I am not wrong you are evaluating the candidates through on job activity hence if possible entrust them task and place them away from your premises, let them work on specific projects. You can book the expenditure on projects, after due evaluation put the eligible candidates on probation so the issue can be resolved because even though they are working on your project but they are out of your area. Because yours is an IT company this is possible

or outsource the activity clear all statutory implications, observe, select and induct.

or have a tie-up with the college, let the final year students work with you on project basis, pay the stipend, evaluate, recruit on completion of their studies.

However request you to have a final opinion from your legal cell and implement.

Regards - kamesh

It's really helpfull.

Thanks a lot for your reply.

Regards

sachin